How did you find our site?

Question

I'm so excited to find out that people have discovered our site via our existing questions addressing their actual problems! That's what our site is all about. Even better, people who get good answers sometimes feel a duty to reciprocate, which often brings in even more good answers. Often these same folks turn out to be valuable contributors and return far more value to the system than they could have every received. It's an ideal model of growth.

So I wanted to open a meta-question to find out what has worked for us. How did you find our site? Please include any questions/answers that influenced your decision to participate.

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I would normally self-answer a question like this, but my discovery process was pretty much unrepeatable: I was one of the folks who committed to the Area 51 proposal.

Answer 1

Ok, here's my "love story".

A couple of months ago (Sunday, April 15th) I was doing a Google search and came across a question by Bruce Alderman on Hermeneutics.SE about the two major philosophies of modern hermeneutics. Jon Ericson provided an excellent, and very helpful answer. I was impressed, and began taking notes and studying further based on what I learned from him.

Christianity.SE

The next day (Monday), I was doing a Google search on "soteriology love". (If anyone hasn't noticed, I take that to be the central theme of Scripture, and thus, the key to understanding it all.) Anyway, I had recently been scoffed at for implying that love was key to understanding soteriology, and after having "faith plus nothing" barked at me, I started to get insecure, and began searching the internet to see if anyone else out there was seeing what I was seeing in Scripture. After reading a very interesting (and encouraging) summary of Orthodox Soteriology (in which love was the central theme), I next came to a question on Christianity.SE.

I recognized the format of the question from Hermeneutics.SE, and my interest was piqued. One of the first things I noticed was that there was a good answer... but wait a minute!... there were other answers also! And there was a voting system! And this was a Christian site! I started to look around the site, and began to notice other questions which were interesting, many of which had numerous perspectives provided. I quickly fell in love with the site.

I was very hesitant to ask or answer any questions at first (feelings of inadequacy, truth be told), but on Tuesday I came across a question that I just had to answer! As soon as I finished answering I saw another great question that I couldn't pass up. (Man, I really need to go back and edit those!)

On Wednesday I worked up the courage to ask my first question. So far only one response, but it was a good one! (I miss you, RiverC... where did you go?) I answered a couple more and was at 110 rep by the end of the day, with badges and privileges starting to come in. It was hard not to get addicted at that point!

My return to Hermeneutics.SE

I was much more reserved about participating in H.SE, though. (I was a bit intimidated.) On June 3rd I finally jumped in and answered my first question on H.SE. Not a bad reception!

I think what attracted me to the site and has kept me here is the sincere pursuit of truth - from folks of all backgrounds and perspectives. I am an Evangelical (I think), but I have really enjoyed and greatly benefited from insight from my Orthodox and Catholic brothers. And yes, I have even enjoyed my debates with (should I say his name?) some of the non-Christians here!

Answer 2

I was not one for denominational indoctrination and wallowing in mere opinions of man. I loved, instead, diving into Scripture and letting the Living Word Speak for itself/Himself.

I found in one of my studies, what appeared to me, a discrepancy in translation.

After a year researching the matter I gathered my findings together into a document. Very few around me were interested in the matter or the research. Not only did it fly in the face of tradition, it involved the feasts of YHWH, the Calendar of YHWH , Greek, Hebrew--the kinds of things that would overwhelm your average church layman. I had little access to Scholars or theologians. Pastors did not have time to engage with me on it or look into it deeply, or, they simply were not motivated to do so. I had a librarian look it over from a scholastic perspective. He suggested that I try to find others who may have similar thoughts that would help support my presentation. I searched on the web and found a question on BH-SE pertaining to one theologian's stance on the matter. Since I was immersed in the issues surrounding the question I posted my research in answer to the question.

I was totally oblivious to the nature of the forum at the time.

I returned some time later and found:
1) I had been welcomed by a moderator who had kindly edited my question and instructed me briefly about the site. Others had lightly edited and made suggestions on how I could improve my post.
2) To my surprise, my post had been grossly misunderstood (my fault) and pounced on.
3) But, people were interested in the text! They were concerned about what it meant! They knew the language! They were willing to discuss it!
4) Suddenly I was no longer some freak brainiac, looming over everyone's head, overwhelming them with things they could not relate to! I was amongst scholars, and theologians, and folks like me, who were interested more in the text than debate over doctrine!

That is what I like about the site, and that is why I stay.

Answer 3

I was hunting the net for some question regarding the gate "the eye of a needle" in Jerusalem. I was pretty sure it was not a gate that Jesus was speaking about in the gospels, but I wanted more proof that this current "gate" called "Eye of a needle" in the walls of Jerusalem couldn't been there in the time of Jesus. It lead me to this question. It didn't answer my question but I thought I might make my own question about this. I really love the way StackOverflow works so when finding this site it was a natural place to ask. This question got transfered to christianity.stackexchange.com (which I didn't know about at that point). And since then I have read a lot of Q&A's from both of those sites which have been helpful to me.